


But They Say There are Rocks at the Bottom

by thought



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-27 16:23:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1717028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thought/pseuds/thought
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>York explores fashion. Carolina explores her feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But They Say There are Rocks at the Bottom

Very early on in the project, when The Mother of Invention is still fresh out of dock and The Director and The Counselor spend more time on-planet in meetings than they do working with the recruits, there's ...an incident. Not a bad sort of incident, but one noteworthy enough to deserve the emphasis.

New York and Carolina are sitting together on the sofa in the lounge, filling out one of The Counselor's hundreds of psychological status exams when their datapads chime incoming message in unison. Carolina opens the message. York reads over her shoulder.

"...There's always mutiny," Carolina says once they've finished reading. "I mean, what're a few charges of treason in the grand scheme of things?"

"Orange would clash," York says, tugging on a few strands of her newly-dyed hair. "Come on, it won't be that bad. We get dressed up, nod and smile when The Director says he's deeply invested in outer colony kids having access to quality computing science education, drink all the free wine."

"Civilian dress. I don't even own formal wear that isn’t the dress uniform," she says. "Do you?"

He shakes his head. "Nah, man. Just ask The Director for a few hours of leave when we dock tomorrow."

"For shopping? I'm sure that'll go over well."

He shrugs. "Hey, if anybody can convince him it's you."

Carolina glares. Leans away from him. "I'll talk to him. Maybe he'll explain why they think dress uniforms would send the wrong message."

York... doesn't say anything. Carolina grew up in a military family, no matter how much of her dad's research was initially funded by private universities. There are certain conversations he figures it's safer never to have.

*

They go shopping.

"I am not wearing that," Carolina says, not looking away from the two pairs of dress pants in her hands. From what he can tell she's trying to decide between black and dark grey.

"Come on, Carolina."

"We are not cartoon characters. If you think my entire wardrobe is going to be teal you are sorely mistaken."

"Aqua," he says.

"I swear to Christ, York."

"Please?" He holds out the dress again, nudging the hanger against her shoulder. She snatches it away from him.

"We'll see. Go pick something. And if it's gold I'm leaving you here and telling The Director you ran off to join the circus."

"You’d be lonely without me," he says confidently. "And bored."

She punches him in the stomach. He kicks her in the shin. Two months serving in the same squad together and they've already stopped holding back. He's pretty sure his internal organs are no longer in their proper place.

"Remember when we had nice things like pool games and coffee dates?" he asks.

"I thought you'd be happy not to be regularly humiliated at pool."

"I liked it better than being humiliated in the training room." This is probably a lie, and from the way she shakes her head Carolina knows it. "Besides, one day I'm gonna beat you at pool. Just give it time."

"You're lucky, I'm good. I absolutely invite you to keep trying." She tosses the dress and the grey pants over her arm. "I also invite you to fuck off and find an outfit so we can get this over with. I saw you eyeing the coffee shop by the shuttle port."

York jogs away with a half-assed salute because she's not wrong about the coffee shop. He picks a couple suit jackets, (one with a shimmery gold thread running through the material), pants, the most obnoxious ties he can find because their new sniper strikes him as the sort of guy to appreciate them, even if Carolina won't. Carolina's already in the fitting room when he gets there.

"Are you trying it?" he asks.

He can feel the heat of her glare even through the door. "Yes, York."

"So c'mon, you've gotta let me see."

She steps out grudgingly. The dress is, he thinks, conceptually based on a waterfall, the blue an iridescent, layered flood of silk, delicate straps and translucent lace at the top shifting into heavy folds of fabric hanging around her knees. The colour would’ve worked better before she dyed her hair, but it's still stunning.

"Close your mouth, York. Are you happy?"

"You look amazing," he tells her. She's still wearing her boots, and there are bruises purpling on her shoulders. York wishes he'd got the chance to know Carolina before the military, before the boots and the bruises stopped being a choice.

"I'm not buying it," she tells him, vanishing back into the fitting room.

"I know, I know," he sighs dramatically. "So mean, Lina."

She tosses the dress over the top of the door. "Go put that back where you found it."

He sets down his own clothes on a nearby chair and straightens the dress on its hanger as he circles back through the store to the appropriate section.

He's been subconsciously keeping an eye out for gold since Carolina warned him off it, so when he catches a flicker of the colour out of the corner of his eye he's turned to look before he even thinks about it. The dress is a rich, warm gold shifting into shades of copper in the right light, the fabric silky when he runs a palm down the front-- not the light, delicate silk of Carolina's dress, but a weightier, sturdy construction. It's a basic design when compared to some of the surrounding pieces, fabric draped around the neckline and shoulders the only elaborate concession. He... doesn't know why he's so drawn to it.

"I thought I said no gold," Carolina says, coming up behind him. He twitches, but she sets a hand against the back of his shoulders, right between his shoulder blades. "Didn't think this was your style."

"It's not," York says. "At least, it hasn't been."

"Until now?"

"Nah," he drops his hand, shakes his head. "I've got some stuff back by the fitting rooms, I should go. Make sure that fits. And then coffee."

"Oh no," she says, reaching past him to unhook the dress from the wrack. "You made me try one on, you think you're getting away without doing the same?"

He... doesn't put up as much of an argument as he probably should. Part of it is the way the silk slipped through his fingers (York is a tactile person, he's a fucking lockpick what do you expect?) but most of it is the gleam in Carolina's eyes something almost predatory in the way she keeps that hand on his back all the way to the fitting rooms.

He wasn't lying when he said the dress wasn't his style. He's never been one for this sort of expensive, easily ruined fabric; never been one for dresses, either. Carolina picked out the proper size, at least, so when he slips it over his head and tugs up the zipper there isn't much resistance. The shoulders bite a bit into his skin, and the fabric catches against the hair on his legs and the cotton of his underwear. He tugs at the fabric around his upper arms, reminds himself that Carolina's legs had been unshaven as well. When he looks in the mirror he does his best to impose objectivity, and he's got to admit it isn't bad. The colour suits him, he's pretty sure, and the dress is long enough that his height doesn't make him look like a tree with half the branches stripped. The dress isn't playful enough to really work with his boots like Carolina’s had, but he kicks them off and steps out into the shop in socked feet.

"So?" he says, posing with a hand on his hip. "I totally rock it, right?"

Carolina stares. It's... a bit disconcerting. Even more so when she doesn't proceed directly to mockery. She stalks closer, backing him up into the fitting room.

"Yeah, York," she says. "You're passable. I guess."

She kicks the door shut, gets his wrists above his head and his back against the wall in the next second, slides a free hand under the skirt of the dress to grip his thigh and leans in close, teeth grazing his exposed throat. It's hot. Startling, and a little bit out-of-nowhere, but absolutely fucking hot. York forces down his instinctive reaction to fight back and tips his head further back, spreads his legs as much as he can without shuffling ridiculously on the carpet.

"I never knew you were into this," he says.

She glances up from her attack on his neck to glare. "Never knew you looked so fucking pretty in a dress."

"Pretty your thing?" he asks, fluttering his eyelashes because he really truly does not know when to shut his goddamned mouth.

Carolina pulls back a bit, still holding his wrists. Drags her teeth across her bottom lip and her eyes up and down his body. Before Freelancer, having a partner so explicitly examine his body with their gaze was a turn-on. Now he just feels like a science experiment or an expensive race horse. Carolina taps her fingers against his pulse point.

"Pretty isn't my thing," she says, finally, and she sounds thoughtful. York's body barely had time to get turned on in the first place, and the mood is evaporating as quickly as it appeared. Carolina drops her hands, takes a few more steps back. "Try on the rest of your stuff."

She closes the door behind her, and York strips out of the dress feeling off-kilter and like he might've done something wrong. He tosses it over the door for Carolina to return, decides on the black and gold jacket, decides against the tie with the dancing bluebirds. When he comes out, Carolina's got her own dress pants and jacket over one arm, but there's a hint of gold peaking out from underneath.

"You want me to run that back?" he asks, nodding towards it.

She shakes her head. "I'm buying it for you."

"I'm not exactly gonna have the opportunity to wear it again."

She smirks a bit. "You sure about that?"

His eyebrows go up. "...I don't know. Am I?"

"You might wanna reconsider." She turns away, heads briskly for the front counter. He catches up with her in a couple long strides.

"Hey, if you want me to have it I can pay--"

She cuts him off sharply. "No. I'm buying it for you."

He shrugs helplessly. "Thanks, I guess. I'll... buy you coffee?"

She ignores him.

He does not get to buy the coffee, either.

*

They've got two days before the benefit dinner, and Carolina uses most of the first day training with Wyoming. York runs a few sims working with the new holo-locks that’ve started appearing on the market, but he cuts out of training early and slips back to his quarters. Shaving his legs takes far longer than he expects it to, and by the time he's done his skin feels sore and his fingers are pruney and dry from the water. The dress feels a hell of a lot better over clean, shaved skin and in the privacy of his own space. It takes a bit of adjusting to get things to lie properly in his briefs, but standing in front of the mirror he runs a hand back through his hair and grins at his reflection.

Carolina's still not back when he darts across the hall and keys entry into her room, not that he was really expecting her. There's the low thrum of nervous anticipation just under his skin, like the comfortable adrenalin rush before an easy mission. He perches on the edge of her bed, tugging the crisp corners of sheet and blanket out of line. He glances down at his datapad. Flips back and forth between news and training manuals and the shitty mystery novel he's determined to finish (preferably before the war ends). Nothing can hold his interest for long, and he finds his gaze bouncing around the blandly utilitarian room, tiny but still better than anything either of them is used to if for no other reason than privacy. He's got a feeling that privacy won't last long; there are a lot of American states.

There's a table tucked in the corner by the head of the bed where Carolina's left a pile of miscellaneous items. He still struggles to reject the assumption that she is perfectly tidy all of the time, always slightly uncomfortable that his belongings are inevitably that slight bit more orderly than hers. York likes things precisely organized, has gotten so used to avoiding unnecessary obstructions and valuing precision in his work that it bleeds over into his personal life as well. Carolina keeps all of her things tucked away or clustered in little piles, like the fewer reminders she leaves of her presence the more comfortable she feels. It isn't an attitude that goes beyond personal possessions. Carolina’s history has roots berried deep in North American Earth soil and there are paths he does not follow for fear of meeting bedrock.

In amongst the varied detritus of the day-to-day is a little leather bag, logo of a popular hotel chain stamped so blatantly across the side that it must've been a free gift. There's a stick of eyeliner poking out between the drawstrings. York picks it up. It's probably a bad idea-- he hasn't worn any makeup beyond foundation since he was fourteen and he never progressed past the beginner's uncertainty combined with teenaged experimental application. But when he spills the contents of the bag onto the bed there's an unopened eye pencil and mascara, a few different lipsticks that he's never seen Carolina wear but which don't appear dried out. He tosses the eyeliner from hand to hand, considering. There's a mirror above the table, built into the wall and shiny clean.

His first attempt is about is terrible as he expected. Steady hands mean his lines don't waver or smudge, but he still manages to come out looking lopsided. The second attempt results in a decent look, but then he gets ambitious and goes for wings and everything falls apart. He's scrubbing away pencil and probably the top layer of his skin when Carolina walks in.

"Um," says York. "How was training?"

"Frustrating. I understand specialization is valuable but if someone can hit the centre of a moving target at two kilometres while hanging upside-down he should be able to last more than ten seconds when we're sparring."

"Did you lecture him? We don't need anybody traumatized during their first week, you know."

She frowns thoughtfully and yanks the elastic out of her hair. "I don't think we have to worry about that."

York tries to be casual about returning the makeup to its bag. Naturally, Carolina notices. She also finally seems to register what he's wearing, because her hands fall away from finger-combing her hair and her spine straightens.

"You got plans for tonight?"

He smiles hopefully up at her. "I don't know. Do I?"

"I think maybe we can arrange something." She takes the bag out of his hand, rummages through the contents with a calculating little smirk tugging at her lips. "Here. Let me do this, since you're obviously failing."

"Hey now," he objects automatically, but her hand on his jaw stills any further protest. She tips his head back, skims fingertips across the fragile skin under his eyes, keeping her thumb tucked securely in the hollow under his jaw.

She starts with the eyeliner. "Stay still." One finger rests at the outer corner of his eye, gently pulling the skin taut while she drags the pencil across his lid. He breathes shallowly. Tries not to think about how one slip of her hand, one twitch of his head and the sharp point could go right into his eye. Fails in not thinking about it, because with that awareness is the realization that he trusts Carolina without hesitation to take care with -- of? -- Him. And perhaps less startling, the understanding that he trusts himself to do as she says. He'll stay still because that's what Carolina wants him to do, because Carolina knows what he needs.

"Huh," he says, once she's finished the eyeliner. "So I... may have just realized a few things."

"Glad you've caught up," she says, and pops open the mascara. "Blink when I tell you."

"When did you figure it out?"

"When we were shopping, definitively. Blink."

"Good to know I'm not too far behind."

"I mean, I had a pretty good idea--"

"Let me keep the small things, Lina."

"Blink."

Last is the lipstick. She doesn't show him which colour she's picked. Part of him is expecting it to be a bright crimson, but the more practical side can't imagine Carolina fucking up the colour scheme like that. She crouches down in front of him so they're eye-to-eye, rolls the lipstick up and cups his jaw again. She's been laser-focused on the entire process, but she seems to take special satisfaction from the lipstick. Using a thumb to wipe away tiny smudges, poking her tongue between her teeth as she drags the waxy coating over his mouth.

"Your perfectionist streak is showing," he says, once he's allowed to speak.

"I have to get it exactly right," she says. "Improves the anticipation of fucking it up later."

"That... is some entirely acceptable reasoning," he says, and clears his suddenly dry throat.

"Come on, get up. I want to get the whole picture."

He stands on legs not-quite-yet unsteady, smoothes hands down the dress and doesn't realize the sensuality of the movement until Carolina has to look back up to meet his gaze. He feels suddenly aware of his bare feet on the thin carpet, scrunches his toes up, shifts onto the balls of his feet like he's ready for a fight. Carolina paces a circle around him in her boots and there's that feeling of being on display again. He'd thought maybe in the right context with the right preparation it wouldn't leave his stomach queasy and shoulders hunched. He was wrong.

"Can you--" he frowns to himself, almost licks his lips before he remembers the lipstick and tucks his tongue against the back of his lower front teeth.

"Hmm?” Carolina steps in behind him, tucks her arms around his upper chest and slides her chin onto his shoulder. "Can I..."

"It's nothing," he says. The full-body contact is reassuring and warm and when he inhales he can smell Carolina's shampoo-- military standard supplies, unlike his own.

"York. You can always ask. You need to know that."

"Just," he mutters. "Don't... look at me like I'm you're newest SMG."

She tightens her hold, hands spreading out over his ribcage. "Sorry. That wasn't... how I meant that, but I'll be more careful in the future."

"Hey, hey it's not a big deal, man, you don't have to... worry about it."

"Hey, you've gotta be ok with this, too. We're partners, right?"

"Right," he says, and wonders how long that's going to last with the hours and hours of training Carolina's putting in and the prospect of more and more states being checked off.

"And I do worry about you, for the record."

"You shouldn't," he says.

"I know," she says, which surprises him. "I'm working on it. How about we say I've got your back.”

"Me too," he says almost before she's finished speaking. “I mean, I've got yours. Always."

She bites him then, digs teeth into the side of his neck almost hard enough to break the skin. He brings a hand up to cover hers where they rest on his sternum but she yanks his wrists down, looping fingers around each wrist and holding them straight at his sides, their arms pressed together like the rest of their bodies already are.

“Keep them there," she says. "You don't move until I tell you."

He smiles. She sets a hand on the back of his neck, the other coming around to rest over the centre of his chest. They stay like that, still and quiet for a long few minutes. York is intensely aware of the soft cotton of her track pants against the sensitive skin on the backs of his legs, feels each breath she takes moving down her arms and into his own body, matches his own breathing to hers and wishes he could match their heartbeats along with it. When he blinks his lashes feel heavy like the fabric of the dress, like Carolina's hands on him Reassuringly present and solid and unwavering.

There's no definitive shift, no moment of transition, but when Carolina slides her hands away he sways back against her instinctively, blood and breath and thoughts dragging slow like melting honey over bones gone malleable. The silk where her hand rested holds that body heat close against his skin like it understands the value.

She catches him. Of course she catches him.

*

The night of the dinner everyone is rushed and snapping at each other, even The Counselor's gentle tones layered thickly with impatience. York bolts around the corner on his way to the docking bay with one shoe untied and runs face-first into Carolina. The sleeve of her jacket is soaking wet from the elbow down and he figures it's probably safer not to ask questions.

"York," she says. "Hold on, I have something for you."

"We actually have negative time," he says. "We should've been on the shuttle two minutes ago."

“I'm aware," she says shortly, and yanks off his tie.

"Oh come on now, what could you possibly have against eagles? It's incredibly appropriate, didn't you take eighth grade history?"

"Shut up," she says, and loops a new tie around his neck, tugging the knot snug against his throat with sharp, methodical motions.

"I'm offended, I really am, I thought you trusted me with my own clothing decisions, at least."

"Come on come on come on, we've got to go. Move."

"I was literally just saying--"

"If you don't think I'll use that as a leash..."

"I feel like we should talk about that first. Spoilers, my answer is yes. Please."

It's not until they're on the shuttle that York actually looks down at the new tie. It's expensive, heavy silk. It's also distinctly aqua. He may or may not take a brief moment to fucking calm his pounding heart and let the flush of colour fade from is cheeks before he looks over at Carolina.

“And here I thought we weren't cartoon characters."

She smiles a deliberate, pleased smile. "I've gained a new appreciation for colour coordination over the past couple days."

York's not a teenager, so he does not have to strategically adjust his suit coat to cover his lap. Carolina's smile becomes a smirk, and she leans over to run the end of the tie through her fingers. Which is when The Director spins around in his seat to face them, looking all business. Carolina slams back in her chair so hard York's surprised she doesn't crack her head against the wall of the shuttle.

The Director shakes his head knowingly and the corners of his mouth tilt up in a tolerantly amused little grin like they're teenagers caught holding hands at the movies. York's pretty sure a reprimand would've been less upsetting.


End file.
